Re: "Thinking God's thoughts after Him"

From: george murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Tue Jan 16 2001 - 14:43:59 EST

  • Next message: John W Burgeson: "Thinking god's thoughts"

    Loren Haarsma wrote:

    > > Does anyone know the source of the phrase "Thinking God's thoughts after
    > > Him?"
    >
    > It's commonly attributed to Kepler, but I don't know of any specific
    > reference.
    >
    > > A recent example of "thinking God's thoughts after Him" is described in
    > > today's Science section of the NY Times: "Experiments on Dense Matter
    > > Evoke Big Bang" http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/16/science/16QUAR.html.
    > > It seems that scientists working at Brookhaven National Laboratory have
    > > now reproduced the same conditions that "existed a few millionths of a
    > > second after the start of the Big Bang."
    > >
    > > I wonder whether there is a connection between this latest scientific
    > > achievement and the events that took place so long ago in the Garden.
    >
    > I've always been taught that we would disobey God if we _failed_ to
    > investigate His amazing creation scientifically.
    >
    > Numerous Christian theologians, philosophers, and educators have
    > written at length about this idea. In the interest of time and
    > brevity, I'll just mention some Bible texts to consider.
    >
    > Genesis 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and
    > increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of
    > the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that
    > moves on the ground."
    >
    > Proverbs 19:2 It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be
    > hasty and miss the way.
    >
    > Matthew 25:14-30 (The parable of the talents).

            The enterprise of "thinking God's thoughts after him" becomes a
    problem when it is assumed that one can do this from nature without starting
    from God's revelation in Christ. Cf. Paul Davies'
    _The Mind of God_. That is why I continue to be such a Barthian killjoy about
    all the happy remarks of ASAers about "evidence for God" from science,
    "general revelation", "God's two books" &c. Once the camel of independent
    natural theology gets its nose in the tent, you're in trouble.

    Shalom,

    George

    George L. Murphy
    "Theologia naturalis delenda est!"
    http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/



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